Fear of Falling
by Revia
Summary: An L/J friendship to love ficlet (this is the only chapter) that may become a chapter of a bigger story. Please R&R!


Fear of Falling  
  
Disclaimer: However much I would like to own Sirius (.or Remus. or James.), I sadly do not. So please don't sue me because I'm honestly not making any money off of JKR's characters.  
  
A/N: Heeeelllpppp!! I am having serious issues with formatting! If you know how, can you *please* tell me in either a review or an email (my email addies are at the bottom of the page), how to do it. because every time I try to get the proper breaks, it shows the labels typed up, and not acting like they are supposed to. *wail* I will re-format this as soon as I get the chance, I promise. This clumped- together-with-no-italics is *really* bothering me. Thanks!  
  
Lily stomped through the Gryffindor portrait hole, slamming the painting behind her as she entered. James looked up from his Transfiguration text as he heard the Fat Lady squawk with agitation, and raised his eyebrows as Lily came over, red hair in disarray, face flushed with anger. He gingerly moved his books to the floor so she could sit. 'Always tread carefully around a certain angry redhead.' He mentally reminded himself. She glared at him as if she knew his thoughts.  
  
"I positively hate Professor Minks." Her green eyes gleamed with frustration as she sat down next to him.  
  
"What did he do this time?"  
  
"He basically told me, *to my face,*" James imagined that he could see the waves of anger, like heat waves, coming off of her. "...that I was horrible at potions, and shouldn't even bother to try anything in medicine. I can't believe that woman! I'm better than Lucius, but nooo, to *him*, she's all too-big happy smiles that look like sideways capital Ds. They should be illegal for their condescending and highly annoying nature, not to mention for showcasing her ugly teeth for the class!"  
  
James couldn't think of a single thing to say. It was true, Lily was not a good potions student, but she apparently didn't want the fact to be pointed out to her. They had not been pleased to discover that, while seventh year had the reputation of being the best year (it was partially true, James had to admit. They had huge freedoms as grads, and they got nicer rooms than they ever had in previous years), it was also one with huge amounts of work. And all of the teachers seemed to forget, at times, that their students had more than just their one class. So they seemed to figure that extra hour of homework wouldn't be too much of an extra load. But when you have the extra hour from four classes, it starts getting over the top. "...That's too bad, Lily..."  
  
"Too bad!?" She glared. James was sure that one day she'd glare at him fiercely enough so he'd just spontaneously shrivel. Or burst into flames. He wasn't quite sure which. "It is the rudest thing I think I have ever been told! Ever! And plus, there's nobody to work with on that charms project and I'm going to have to work by myself and I don't want to and I think I failed that bloody magical creatures test because I didn't study because we had the potions test and Professor Thomson said he might have lost that potions test and I might have to write it again and I studied so hard for it and I don't want to have to take it again because that's the reason I failed the other test and everyone wants me to make up my mind about what I want to do next year and I have no clue and everything I consider is always 'not right for me' or I didn't take the right courses or I'm not good enough and I am sick of it and I don't want to graduate yet and..." She took a deep breath. Her eyes looked suspiciously bright to James. "...and... ...and..." She abruptly began to laugh, a false sounding giggle with her face screwed up in anger and stress. And then, just as suddenly, she began to cry. James was horrified.  
  
Gingerly, he wrapped his arms around his friend, running his fingers through her hair as her sniffles slowly shuddered to a stop.  
  
"I can't believe I just did that." She mumbled into his shoulder.  
  
But she didn't move.  
  
James could always hear Sirius coming from a kilometer or four away. He always managed to thump down the stairs from the boy's dorm with a racket that could rival a herd of elephants. So James logically assumed that he would never have to worry about his best friend sneaking up on him. But didn't Padfoot just have to appear quietly through the portrait hole? 'Just my luck.' James grumbled to himself as Sirius' face transformed into the perfect picture of glee, winking at the pair on the sofa. The small flames in the fireplace were starting to feel a little too hot; James could feel it in his face. And then Sirius started to charade a snogging session. James decided to employ one of Lily's best death glares. It worked. slightly. Sirius grinned widely and stopped his pantomime. At least there was nobody else in the common room to join in Sirius' new version of charades.  
  
"Lily?" There was a very long pause.  
  
"Mmmmf?" She still didn't move. James couldn't say that he minded.  
  
"Are you ok?"  
  
"Mmmmf."  
  
"Was that a yes or a no?"  
  
"Mmmmff."  
  
"I'll take that as a... yes?"  
  
"Mmmmmff." She looked up at him then, her teary eyelashes framing her emerald eyes, and a happy grin on her face. "I'm all better now. Thank you ever so much." She kissed him on the cheek and fled up to the girls dorm, pointedly ignoring Sirius, who was doing his best Cheshire-cat impression.  
  
* * *  
  
"Shuttup Padfoot." James interrupted his friend before he could even mutter a sound. Sirius still managed to look smug. And still managed to get his words in edgewise.  
  
"I told you so."  
  
"What!"  
  
"I told you that you and Li-"  
  
"You never said any such thing!"  
  
"I did! Just two weeks ago I did!"  
  
"You most certainly did not!"  
  
"I-! ...Oops... maybe that was Moony..."  
  
James rolled his eyes. "She was just stressed out. That's all. I was offering a shoulder to cry on."  
  
Sirius eyed the wet blotch on his friend's black school robes. "Literally."  
  
* * *  
  
Lily sighed as she flopped backwards onto her maroon bedspread. 'Real stupid, Lily. Just go ahead and break down in the common room why don't you?' It had all been building for a week. Professor Minks' thinly-veiled insults had just tipped the scales from a not-too-bad to a horrible week. Although James hadn't looked at her with 'the Lily's gone insane look,' as she thought he would; she figured that she must have looked and seemed crazy. But he had smiled and held her, making even that three-foot potions essay look simple and not important. Even though it was due tomorrow.  
  
With a yelp, she realized she left her bag (with her barely begun potions homework in it) downstairs. With James. "Oh bloody hell."  
  
* * *  
  
Lily tip-toed down the dorm stairs, not totally sure of what she was worried about, and knowing that, for some reason, she didn't want to bump into James again. But the boys hadn't left (in fact, Remus and Peter had joined them), and now a couple second years were setting up, with great enthusiasm, a chess game. Lily mustered some of the Gryffindor nerve, strolled down the stone steps, and over to the couch where the Marauders were clumped. She grinned in their direction as she grabbed her bag, and tried to make a quick exit. But then she discovered why she had felt she had to avoid James.  
  
She looked at him as she went to depart- and froze. The dam broke. The wall she had built to keep her good friend James out, the lid of the cauldron that had been bubbling since second year, her safety charm, crumbled with what she imagined to be a very audible crash. Heat rose in her cheeks, she could feel it slowly slithering its up towards her hair. And yet she couldn't remove her eyes from his bronze ones. They were very firmly stuck. She idly mused whether there was some impossibly strange gluing-charm that was doing this. Then she pondered the counter-charms. She didn't see Remus or Sirius or Peter or the red sofas or the kids playing chess or even the room around them. All she was aware of was... *him.*  
  
"I- I- havetofinishmypotionsessay." She managed to stammer out before she turned on her heel (with a forced grin at the boys), and hiked back up to the girl's dormitory. Swearing softly, she tried to begin her potions essay.  
  
* * *  
  
Remus glanced pointedly between James and the girl's dormitories, while Sirius and Peter grinned. James had a deer-in-headlights expression on his face.  
  
"Well, I suppose you were right, Padfoot." Remus said with a smile.  
  
James couldn't even muster the effort to start a teasing argument.  
  
* * *  
  
Weeks passed, and nothing more was said by Lily or James of the 'episode,' as Remus, Sirius and Peter were starting to call it. Life continued.  
  
* * *  
  
James flew through the late afternoon sky, delighting in the fresh smell of spring in the air. The slight chill in the air hardly seeped through his gloves, Griffindor scarf and winter-robes. Feeling happy and perhaps a little giddy, he did numerous hairpin turns through the three Quidditch goal posts before soaring above the stands, just basking in the feel of having the pitch to himself. A yelling voice, dulled by distance, attracted his attention. Lily was standing in the middle of the field, her long red hair standing out on the background of her black cold-weather robes and the winter-browned grass of the pitch. James abruptly plummeted towards her and came to a halt beside her, a huge grin adorning his face. She look startled. "I asked to you come down, not fall like a stunned bird!" She squeaked.  
  
"But it's so much more fun that way!"  
  
"No, I assure you it's not. It looked like you were going to hit the ground."  
  
"Worried, Lily?"  
  
"Only that we'll lose the Quidditch cup if you're not on the team because you're in the hospital wing!"  
  
"That was a very round-about way of complimenting me, you know."  
  
"Ohhh shut it, James."  
  
"No thank you." His face lit up with the plan that suddenly came to mind. Lily immediately recognized the devilish smirk, and backed away.  
  
"What are you planni- Oof!" James scooped her onto his 'Dustbanisher 1100' and brought the broom into the air.  
  
"Don't you dare!" Lily sat sideways on the broom, clinging for dear life to James' middle.  
  
"I hardly thought you could condemn dives if you haven't ever tried..." Lily gasped and held on tighter. "...Lily...! Need... air...!" She loosened her death-grip on him slightly as they rose higher. James wasn't actually too sure about the reliability of his broom with two people on it, so he discreetly decided that they wouldn't go too high. Or try anything *too* fancy. He grinned.  
  
"As much as I love flying *on my own broom*, I am not trusting this thing with two people!" Lily lectured loudly into his robes.  
  
"Is the fearless Lily finally scared of something?"  
  
"Just plummeting 50 feet to the half-thawed Quidditch pitch, that's all." Lily replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes. Although the gesture was lost to him, as she was busy watching the ground fall farther and father away.  
  
"Not 50 feet, Lily dearest!" He knew that there was a glare with his name on it somewhere underneath all that hair. "Only 40!"  
  
"Oh, and that just make all the difference." She tore her eyes away from the turf below, and looked over towards the castle.  
  
"So it's a fear of falling, now is it?"  
  
"Perhaps." She looked up at him now, green eyes wide, arms still wrapped around his chest. James regarded her, his friend since first year, and was suddenly hit by fear. 'She's your friend, James. Your friend. Just...'  
  
And he leaned down and gently kissed her.  
  
He couldn't figure out who was more shocked. Himself, or Lily.  
  
He thought he'd fall off the broom when she kissed him back.  
  
"Are sure about that fear of falling?" James grinned as she rested her head on his shoulder, her arms still draped around his chest.  
  
"No... I think I'll be alright."  
  
  
  
A/N: So? What do you think? Please, please, please review. I really want to know if people read this, and what they thought about it. (Questions, comments and constructive criticism welcome- flames will be used to heat my cold toes.) Pleeeaassee Review! Now, there was something I was wondering. I am currently working on a long L/J fic (end of seventh year/post-Hogwarts), and this ficlet might fit in nicely as a chapter. What do you guys think? Should I leave it as a story? Or make it a chapter in the longer one? Or make the FoF the prequel? As it is in the long fic (it doesn't quite have a name yet... or a full chapter... just ideas, floating around ^_^), it starts out with Lily & James already together. Or should I abandon everything all together, lol? ~_^ So what do you think? Please write it in the review, or email me: MarielRW@hotmail.com or Elathien@rogers.com. (I check the second one more often) Thanks so much! ~Revia 


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